


Touched More Than Spirit

by DefaltManifesto



Category: Mysterious Skin (2005)
Genre: Gen, Letters, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Past Sexual Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, past child sexual abuse, phantom pains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-03
Updated: 2016-10-03
Packaged: 2018-08-19 06:19:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8193479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DefaltManifesto/pseuds/DefaltManifesto
Summary: I don't give a good shit if you're lonesomeI think that you should go home son





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title and summary from My Friend Marcus by Manchester Orchestra. Comments are greatly appreciated. General warning for discussion of everything that happens in the film. I might do a sequel but for now this feels like a good place to end it.

Phantom pains. That’s how it starts. He’s wrapping up some woman’s sandwich when it hits him, the heavy thwack of something against his skull. It scatters his vision and he hands the sub to his coworker, normal as ever. The steady ache stays with him the rest of his shift.

Neil worries it won’t ever leave.

 

-.-

 

Neil wakes the next morning choking. He coughs and sputters, each cough forcing a painful exhalation followed by a desperate gasp for air. Eventually, he catches his breath, but he still feels imaginary fingers at his throat. They feel warm, full of life even.

As he hauls himself into the bathroom and climbs into the shower, he wonders if Brian still dreams of cool alien fingers. As he shivers and shakes under the warm spray, he wonders what the hell is wrong with him.

 

-.-

 

Neil feels like a real New Yorker now. He scowls at the ground as he walks, hands shoved in his pockets and his jacket zipped tight against the chill. His head hasn’t stopped throbbing, and he takes quick and shallow breaths to breath around the lump lodged in his throat. He has no destination in mind as he walks. Today’s his day off, and he’s pretty sure if he stays he’ll end up offing himself to escape the non-stop anxiety that crawls over his skin whenever he’s inside too long.

He knows he’s fucked up. He even knows _why_ he’s fucked up. Neil’s over-confident to a fault, but he knows no one just moved on fine and dandy after being raped. He was an exception to a lot of rules he thought, but not that one. Neil checks over his shoulder too often and he doesn’t ask himself why.

 

-.-

 

Wendy’s fingers ease the throb above his eye as he rests his head in her lap. There’s something about the gentle, absent-minded taps as he flicks between the news and some game show he doesn’t have the patience to figure out that chases the pain away. In a way, it’s intimacy that does it. It calms and distracts him because with Wendy, it’s not about sex or money.

It’s just this. A warm body to hold close. No fear of being judged, or at least that’s the great lie he tells himself. Wendy, more than anyone, knows the dark parts of him and anyone, knows the dark parts of him and she still hangs around, but that thought isn’t quite right either because now…now there _is_ someone who knows him better.

Brian knows who he really is. Brian knows how disgusting and fucked up Neil’s very core is and Brian…

Brian wasn’t there and even if he asked, Neil knows Brian would never stick around. No one would, not if they really knew. So Neil keeps his mouth shut and lets Wendy’s fingers chase away his pain for a little while longer.

 

-.-

 

The nightmares come next. It’s almost out of order, that way. The end result is the same though; plagued by memories and phantom touches he can’t escape no matter what side of the sky the sun is on. Wendy knows something is wrong, but she doesn’t ask. Neil knows it’s because she knows better. She knows that whatever it is might be so bad she could never look at him the same, never love him the same.

Regardless of Wendy’s involvement, Neil knows he needs help. He knows he’s dangling on the edge and for the first time in his life, he actually dreads what might happen if he falls over it.

 

-.-

 

Neil writes a letter.  Not just a post card either but a full on dear-sincerely-letter. He hopes Eric doesn’t mind that he isn’t the recipient.

 

-.-

 

_Dear Brian,_

_I don’t know what to do. You’ve changed everything and I can’t fix it because you’re the only one that knows how fucked up I am. And I don’t want anyone else to know what you know. So help me. Because I don’t know what the hell I’m doing._

_-Neil McCormick_

-.-

 

The nightmares change and Neil goes from hanging on the edge to entirely out of control. At first, while draining, the nightmares had been predictable, just repetitions of Brighton Beach over and over again. But then the john’s face changes. It’s Coach that holds him down and rips him open, bludgeons his head, and leaves him to die.

He manages to trip his way to the bathroom before losing last night’s dinner in the toilet. After, he curls up on the tile floor, kneels to his chest as his eyes lost focus staring at the blank wall by the door. He knows he needs to process it, his nightmares. He needs to think about what it means, be for himself what he was for Brian.

Wendy jumps when she comes in early in the morning to start getting ready. The worry is clear on her face. She helps him to his feet and pushes him up against the wall and looks him in the eyes, something she’s always been able to do so easily when he struggles.

“God dammit McCormick, you need help.”

Neil curls into her weight, shaky arms wrapping her waist. “I don’t know how.”

“I know, shh, I know…” Her hands push through his hair as she holds him close.

It’s not until she helps him back into bed that he realizes he’s crying. He can count on one hand how many times he’s done that. It doesn’t stop until longer after Wendy leaves for work.

 

-.-

 

_Dear Neil,_

_I don’t know what you think I could do. I’m seeing a therapist. Eric says you’d laugh at the idea (don’t worry, I haven’t told him much, and I’ve left you out of what I did say). I guess part of me wonders what I even owe you, but that’s the part of me that never seems to stop being angry at everything._

_he part that does want to help doesn’t know how. Maybe you could give me something to work with. I can handle it. I didn’t that night but…I mostly know what I can handle these days._

_Sincerely,_

_Brian Lackey_

-.-

 

Neil doesn’t write back for a while. Every time he sits down and tries, the phantom hand that squeezes his neck tightens. The thing is, he’s never tried to put much of anything into words, letting it erupt from his chest haphazardly and covered in expletives instead. He throws away a lot of paper. The first few lines go fine, but when it comes to the part where he has to actually say what he’s feeling…he freezes. Wendy and Eric had always been good at emoting and expressing themselves.

And Neil doesn’t get that. He’s only ever performed what he thought he should be, what he thought he was. He doesn’t know what defines him beyond that. It had been easy, simple really, to just sink into the persona of who he wanted to be until that was all he really was. He’d almost convinced himself too, but the sinking feeling that everything was a lie never left, it only ever receded. Neil doesn’t really know what’s under the lie. He has a feeling, of course, that he at least knows what he’s hiding from himself.

The problem is, that just makes him want to run away from it even more.

 

-.-

 

_Brian,_

_I’m dropping the dear thing because I hate sounding that proper or whatever._

_You don’t really owe me anything. After all, I’m the whole reason you’re such a fucked up mess in the first place. I’m kind of a terrible influence that way. I guess I’ll just stick with the facts because I don’t know about the rest of it._

_I keep having nightmares. They’re usually of this trick gone bad. I wasn’t mugged on my way to the airport like I told my mom. I got raped I guess. So I was having nightmares about that, but lately I’m dreaming that it’s Coach doing it. And I get that it was terrible for you and all but it wasn’t for me, only now I can’t remember it right because of these stupid nightmares._

_Who the fuck knows. I guess tell me what you think. Maybe then I’ll know what I’m supposed to be feeling._

_-Neil McCormick_

-.-

 

After two weeks with no word from Brian, Neil decides to take matters into his own hands. He waits until Wendy has two days off in a row. He’s not so much of a dick that he’d make her life as hard as his feels most days after all. He picks them up dinner from the Chinese place she likes and times it so everything is ready to eat when she comes home from work.

"What did you do?” she asks.

"What?”

She raises an eyebrow as she kicks off her shoes and drops her purse by the door. “Because this is classic buttering up technique right here.” She took a seat and tugged the chopsticks out of their paper wrapping. “Not that I’m complaining.”

“Just enjoy it. I can save disappointing you for later,” Neil says.     

Wendy smiles and hooks her foot around his ankle under the table. They eat in silence and it’s the best Neil’s felt in weeks, even with the pain above his eye and the tight hand around his throat. He’s still not sure how exactly he’s going to talk about it. He figures his best bet is to stick with the facts. Maybe if he can get those right, he can start doing the rest of it.

Wendy sets her empty plate aside when she’s done and fixes him with her steady gaze, the one that tells him it’s time to stop running.            

“So McCormick. What’s the deal?”

Neil opens his mouth and starts to talk. He talks for a long time.

 

-.-

 

  _Dear Neil,_

_Sorry for the late reply. School has been hectic, and honestly I had to think for a while about what to even say._

_I don’t think you’re a bad influence first of all. I don’t blame you for what happened, not really. You said it yourself. You were there to make it seem fun, and I don’t think he would’ve let you leave. Just because you didn’t try to get away doesn’t mean it wasn’t rape. Did you try to run away from that john?_

_Which I guess I should say I’m sorry that happened. I feel stupid saying sorry. It’s not like it does you any good anyways._

_If you want my opinion on your dreams, I’d say your subconscious is sick of you lying to yourself about what Coach did. It was wrong and maybe it took meeting me for you to realize it. I won’t apologize for that. But what Coach did is just as fucked up as what that john did, and I’m not sure if that helps you or not, but I really think everything that’s wrong with you is the result of you being in denial._

_I mean look what denying it my whole life did to me. I don’t know how helpful that is for you to hear though. Let me know if I can help. I don’t hate you Neil. I hate Coach, and I wish you did too._

_-Brian Lackey_

-.-

 

Wendy avoids him for a while after Neil tells her everything. He doesn’t blame her. Now that she really knows how perverted and weak he is, that it was the core of his whole self and not just a simple phase, he doesn’t truly expect her to stick around. It still feels good to have it out though. It feels like progress, even when the thought of losing Wendy numbs him to his core.

And then one night, she joins him on the couch while he watches TV. Neil doesn’t move, only holds his breath. After a moment, Wendy tucks her legs beneath her body and then lays down with her head in his lap. The tension that had lurked in his chest for days loosens. Neil pushes his fingers through Wendy’s hair and allows himself a small smile.

 

-.-

 

_Brian,_

_You just don’t get it. It’s not lying to myself. I did like it. Maybe now I regret it a little bit but that doesn’t mean I didn’t love him. It doesn’t matter if he would’ve let me leave, I didn’t want to. I get that everyone thinks it’s bad and sure, I think I regret it, but I liked it when it was happening._

_But I don’t like that it hurt you. If I could take that part back, I would._

_-Neil McCormick_

-.-

 

The panic attacks start up next. They make Neil feel like he’s shaking apart, and mostly, he zones out afterwards, his mind too tired to engage what causes them. He rereads Brian’s last letter a lot, but it’s like reading it through someone else’s eyes. He reads the words but his brain doesn’t process them. He feels completely detached, like the words aren’t about him but are from some sort of story.

When he thinks about it too hard, his head pounds and his stomach turns. He’s not sure how Brian thinks he’s lying to himself, but as he rereads the letter for what must be the twentieth time, he can’t help but wonder if maybe Brian _is_ right. His mind is trying to protect him from something after all. There’s no other reason for the increased pain when he tries to think of why his nightmares still feature Coach.

Anger is the only reaction he can have. He tries not to be mad at Brian, but some part of him is mad that Brian sought him out and made him think about everything that happened. That isn’t fair though, so he buries the anger with everything else.

 

-.-

 

_Dear Neil,_

_I think you should ask yourself why you so desperately need to have enjoyed the abuse you suffered. Maybe if you can answer that honestly, you might start healing. I don’t know what else I can do to help. This has to come from you._

_Sincerely,_

_Brian Lackey_

 


End file.
